Where I blather on about being a mom and try to break through my writer's block.
My writer's block is so bad, it took me twenty minutes to write this description.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Anonymous on the web, in the world

I've wanted to make a blog for awhile, specifically about my son. You know, a "mommy blog," with cute pictures and descriptions of our lives. I really enjoy reading other mom blogs, and I want to be able to comment on them without looking like a weird lurker without her own blog. But I just can't deal with pictures of my baby being on the internet. As much as I want to do it, I hold back out of fear of weirdos. But every day that I post here, I feel less weird about putting my life out in the big blog-o-sphere, because I realize, no one will ever read it. Ever. There is so much crap out there, the chances that someone will come across it, are, like, nil. Everyone has a blog these days, and 90% of them are absolutely crap-tacular. If you just click on the "next blog" option on the blogger blogs, you will run across some shit. So, I'm more comfortable divulging information about myself and my recent dilemma of not being able to write to save my life.

Is a mommy blog next? Hell no! If no one reads that, it will be way sad and pathetic and I'll feel bad about myself.

I stopped really writing when I went to college. I spent my first year at a very difficult private university, and every ounce of brain cells I had went to my work. Ok, that's not entirely true. I lost a LOT of brain cells to partying. But I had to put all my creative energy towards writing papers instead of writing short stories. I wrote a bit, and some of it was alright, but the days of marathon writing sessions and living in the fantasy world of my words were over. I was already seriously beginning to doubt my ability to put something together.

It's been three years since that first year of college. The people I started school with are graduating, and I'm not. I'm afraid I've taken off far too many semesters, and even the ones I didn't take off, I went part time. I'm at an easier, public university now. The fact that I couldn't cut it at Private U will always be a sense of failure to me. My alcoholism and co-dependence played the most in it, but those things are of me, therefore, I failed.

I can't write anymore. I had some brilliant ideas a few years back, and every once in awhile I tweak them around, make an outline, get psyched up about writing, and when it comes down to actually DOING it, I just can't.

I used to use my stories as a fantasy world. I could make life however I wanted it when I was controlling the words. I was my characters, and they did the things I secretly desired, and lived the way I wanted to live. Then, at a certain point, some time in the past three-four years, I learned I just had to give up my fantasy life. I have a real life. I have responsibilities and obligations. I can't just run around pretending things are the way I write them. I have to accept that they are the way they are. I can't hide in my fiction, pretending to be someone else. I don't have time for that. I have to face the real world, even if it isn't what I want.

So where does that leave my dream of being a writer? Are "real writers" delusional like me, or have they found some way to transcend that and write while they still live in the "real world?" I just don't know if I can do that. The more I write, the more I dislike my reality and get uncomfortable. I long to do it, but I know the consequences are disastrous.